Technical Congress 2018-Discussion Topics

We are thrilled to be hosting the second annual Technical Congress with our long-time partners and early Ed-Fi adopters, the Arizona Department of Education. The format of the meeting will feature a combination of plenary sessions and working groups. Sessions will be largely be technical in nature but there will be content for business analyst participation. We are also contemplating the addition of technical training on new, advanced topics. The meeting will be held in Phoenix from April 11-13. Registration and hotel information is available here.

For those of you that attended the meeting last year, you’re familiar that the purpose of the Technical Congress is to ensure that Ed-Fi technical designs and decisions are deeply embedded in the community. The Technical Congress provides a public forum for technical community members to weigh-in on important roadmap decisions. Having said that we’d love for you to give us your feedback now as we are building out the agenda.

Take a look at our proposed topics below and feel free to comment on the areas that most interest you or suggest a topic for consideration.

Plenary topics

Roadmap transition to 3.x standards and technology: community status and community resources and needs

Assessment data exchange: state of the market

Product suite versioning

Summarizing work group outputs

Governance models

Possible Workgroup Topics

Transition to 3.0 ODS and API, including using the new extensibility model. This in-depth session will help prepare agencies and vendors for transition to the 3.0 APIs and the new model for extensibility.

Assessment data exchange via REST API. The Alliance recently released a draft specification for REST API-based assessment data exchange and an accompanying certification. This session will review the materials and gather community feedback.

Special Interest Group: Data Quality and API Reliability. Data quality has long been a key community topic, and became the focus of a recent special interest group. Session will review designs and actions by that group.

Finance domain modeling and data exchange. This working session will benchmark the current Ed-Fi finance domain model against community needs and propose model changes.

Teacher preparation data models and exchange. The Teacher Preparation Data Project has designed a model for capture of teacher development based on Ed-Fi.

Sample Data Generator application and beta program kickoff. The Alliance is releasing a beta of the Sample Data Generator tool. Those wishing to participate in the beta program must attend this overview and training session.

Generate and EDFacts reporting. The Alliance community and AEM have been working on enabling EDFacts reporting by powering the Generate tool via the Ed-Fi ODS and via Ed-Fi APIs.

Bulk data exchange technology and long tail of data. Focused community discussion on issues related to Ed-Fi bulk technologies and consideration of new strategies for incorporating the “long tail of data” into Ed-Fi implementations.

Expanding multi-year data capture: 1 year later. A year ago, the Alliance launched a set of development activity to expand the ability to capture multi-year data. Come learn where those efforts are and help guide the future of this work.

Analytics options for the Ed-Fi community. Share your experiences with powering analytics off of the Ed-Fi ODS and APIs, and discuss community tools and options for making analytics simpler for the Ed-Fi community.

Ed-Fi Certification program. The Alliance currently offers API integration certifications for student information systems and assessment vendors. Join a conversation on the past, present and future of Ed-Fi certification.